Port Vale

Robbie Earle's header in the 1989 play-off final took Port Vale up, and the club has kept coming back to that route: League Two play-off winners in 2022, and beaten in the 1993 final at the level above. Between those came the two runs that supporters still measure managers against — the EFL Trophy won in 1993 and again in 2001.

The name comes from the valley of ports on the Trent and Mersey canal, and the club has spent its life in Burslem, one of the pottery towns folded into Stoke-on-Trent. Whether it began in 1876 — the official year — or a few years later out of Porthill Victoria is disputed; either way, the club that plays now is not quite the one that started. Debt closed the original side in 1907. A new company formed in 1919 and took the Football League place left by Leeds City.

In 1935 supporters were asked whether the club should become Stoke United or Five Towns FC. They voted it down, and the name stayed.

Roy Sproson played 842 matches between 1949 and 1972, which covers the move to Vale Park in 1950 from the Old Recreation Ground and most of what the club did afterwards: the Fourth Division title in 1959, the Third Division North championships before it. Capacity at Vale Park now stands at 16,800.

Stoke City are three miles away and the Potteries derby carries the older grievance — Burslem against the city that absorbed it. Crewe Alexandra, up the A500 in Cheshire, are the other one, close enough that both sets travel and neither fixture needs building up.